


Misremember

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Horror, Implied Harrymort, Licking, Mindfuck, No actual sex, Self-cest, Sharing a Body, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 17:11:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: When thrown into his past, Voldemort does the prudent thing.





	Misremember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lord_of_the_Snakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_of_the_Snakes/gifts).



> To Meb: Christmas is best with a bit of darkness, no? ;) That said, I hope your holidays are a lot less dreary than this fic. :)
> 
> Betaed by RedHorse and abetted by nencenedril. Thank you both so much.

He fell, his curse turned back upon him again, so like before—but there was nothing to anchor him now, nothing to stop him from passing on this time, nothing to turn death aside. And yet...

And yet he woke, and there was the taste of blood in his mouth (and there was taste, oh) and the sticky coolness of sweat at the small of his back and the scent of damp stone and fetid air thick in his nostrils. It was a familiar scent, but why?

Lord Voldemort blinked—or something akin to it—and knew that he was not dead.

But if he had evaded death, then where and in what state was he? What could this be, this not quite life, this memory?

Voldemort floundered about for a moment, trying to sit up, or to even lift a hand. But the body did not respond to his entreaties; it was not, therefore, his. Something, its proper owner, was in his way. He was not cowed so easily and pushed past the obstruction to take hold of his own hand, but felt pain like dispossession, like the Mudblood’s accursed sacrifice anew.

_No! What are you?_

_Ah, you speak._ Voldemort knew that voice. It had been his once, long ago, when he had been Tom Riddle. _I don't know_ , he said in reply. _A spirit, perhaps. Here, in your head._ Imprisoned, he feared, in his own past. Oh, a mercy; a punishment; a chance to improve his lot?

Tom gamely stood, turning his head to study his surroundings with frantic concern. He seemed to be searching for something in the semi-darkness. Voldemort remembered this place too, too well. It was lit only by a greenish glow from several torches, each burning without flickering, a marvel among marvels of enchantment. Fitting that he should return here, to the temple of his birthright. 

Tom found what he sought, a dog-eared grimoire, stained and stinking. He paged through it with trembling hands and settled on a page with heavy splotches, of what Voldemort had always presumed to be refuse from previous owners' attempts. _Post-ritual effects_ , it read in slanting script across the top. "Weakness of the nerves, souring of the humors, a dull throbbing in the chest," he muttered.

 _What is this?_ Tom thought. His Occlumency was nigh nonexistent, thus his thoughts were unbearably loud. Voldemort cringed.

 _That is not your concern for now. The deed is done, I take it_ , he murmured. _I dearly hope you have an alibi, child._ (He had, he recalled. A perpetually confused Avery had been ordered, without knowing why, to tell any that might inquire they'd been studying together. An unlikely story in one sense, but standard enough to pass most professors' scrutiny.)

 _Of course. Avery_ , Voldemort caught—was bombarded with. He'd need to offer his help with the Occlumency, he decided, for his own comfort.

The boy lifted the discarded—now ensouled—diary and tucked it gently into a pocket, then Levitated himself back up the pipe. He had yet to learn to fly, Voldemort recalled with little feeling; best not to dwell on those days of his weakness. (Though he had no choice but to dwell on them now. This was indeed a punishment, he concluded.)

The boy's spell was weak, and he almost fell twice. It would not have been a pleasant fall, for he would have slid down the slime-encrusted metal and had even more evidence to hide.

 _Let me_ , Voldemort offered, solicitous. His magic drew from the same source, but his control was much finer; he had learned to do more with very little, the true secret of a great wizard.

 _No_ , the boy replied predictably.

He was stronger now than he been a few moments ago, and he ignored the refusal with ease. Tom’s magic bent eagerly to his will.

 _Hide the body_ , Voldemort murmured as they alighted upon the warped tiles. He had not bothered before, so be may as welb begin with small changes.

 _Vanish it?_ Tom was bleary and exhausted and afraid, and his thought process suffered accordingly.

 _If you please_ , Voldemort said.

Tom tried, but either his weariness or some other, higher force made the spell slide off and dissipate into the surrounding air.

 _Allow me, then_ , Voldemort snapped, impatient. Tom couldn't fight him off any better, thus rendering his consent unnecessary. But Voldemort's spell had the same effect, which is to say, none whatsoever.

 _This is bizarre_ , he noted. Tom agreed. _Off we go, then. They will find her soon, and you do not want to be here when they do._

_Obviously._

_Very good. You still have some sense._ Voldemort subsided back into his corner of Tom's mind.

When Tom slept—his slumber disturbed only by the concern that Hogwarts might close and he would be sent back to the orphanage—Voldemort began to evaluate his situation in more depth. If he had indeed traveled in time, then he should remember meeting his future—present—self, but he recalled nothing of the sort. Therefore, his defeat had not yet happened, and he could...

Make things better. Ensure a brighter future. Prevent his defeat at— at the hands of Harry Potter altogether. (At the mere thought of the name, he felt that inexplicable, traitorous warmth, and resolved to avoid such thoughts with asperity.)

Voldemort began to plot. But what precisely could he change? If something so small as Vanishing the Mudblood's body was beyond his reach, then what was left to him?

*

Tom's chest hurt. His hand kept twitching, wanting to massage the spot where he had torn…but no, he couldn’t draw attention to it. Anyone suspicious of his motives could make the connection between his pain and Myrtle's death... But again, it was unlikely.

And that—that thing that had taken residence in his head. Every time he tried to get a grasp upon it, his thoughts or magic or mind itself itched, and he curled away. How had it gotten there? What could it be?

Sometimes, he felt as if he were being dissected from within, laid out piecemeal on a buffet table for its inspection and eventual feasting. He wanted it gone.

 _Frame the oaf_ , it—he—suggested, cold and impassive.

 _What good will that do?_ But it made sense, even as he asked. Humiliating, to take suggestions in such a way. But the award for services to the school was gratifying nonetheless, although far from soothing.

*

There had to be more he could attempt! Voldemort thought in annoyance. Something that would have saved him years of suspicion (thus sparing his Horcruxes), that may have saved him when his own cursed struck him down in the middle of the Great Hall. And so, he decided, he would go to Dumbledore and establish his innocence in Myrtle’s death or inspire his pity enough to excuse him.

He took possession of Tom’s body at the end of the year’s final Transfiguration class, then lingered. “do you need something, Tom?” Dumbledore asked, giving him a piercing stare.

Voldemort intended to say Myrtle’s death had been accident, that there had been a terrible mistake…but the words would not come, no matter how hard he tried.

Dumbledore watched his struggles in mild concern. “Is something the matter?”

“No, sir,” Voldemort said at last, turning to leave.

So it was true, then. He could not change his past at all.

*

"You," Tom hissed, staring across a nondescript room at what had to be his mind's intruder.

"You're dreaming, child. I could be anyone."

"I know you." Yet he had never seen this man before, not in the flesh. He was almost a projection of that secret, dear image Tom craved for himself. His oft-remarked-upon beauty, warped into grandeur. His long, protruding nose, his hair, both morphed into greater things. His eyes, no longer dark but burning, scarlet like blood. "Who are you?"

"Dear, dear, but you said you knew me." His smile was no smile, but a pulling back of lips, a baring of teeth in feline ferocity. "I suppose I am now what you will be, but not for many years yet."

"How long?" Tom's voice betrayed him with the faintest of tremors, and by the spark in his companion's narrow-pupiled eyes, he knew he had not deceived him.

"All in good time." The man came closer, reaching a hand forward to grasp one of Tom's own, turning it over to trace the lines of his palm. "I remember this. So fragile a beauty are you."

Tom huffed. "No I'm not." He sounded petulant even to his own ears.

The man ignored this, coming closer still, one of his hands settling about Tom's neck, fingers playing about the top of his spine, light and cool. "I wonder, however, what it is to hold such beauty in one's hand, to peel back the lie, to reveal the truth at the heart of it."

Tom shivered at these words. "I don't—"

"Don't you, boy?" Boy, now, not child. The hand tightened about his neck, and he was being drawn forward. The man stood perhaps a couple inches taller than Tom, but in this confined space (whatever this space was, a construct in his mind), it seemed an unbearable difference. "I wish to taste this beauty, for I have forgotten it."

Tom's mouth was captured, sharp teeth against his lips, and the pain of it was glorious. He kept himself entirely still, every fiber and sinew of his body keening for more of this devouring.

The kiss ended, and his companion's tongue traced a line down his throat, his chest... Tom wondered when he'd been divested of clothing, and then—it felt—of skin. Another nip of teeth near his hip, and he shuddered. Voldemort, he moaned, or thought he did. He couldn't be sure of anything here.

“That’s right.” Voldemort glanced up, his ruby eyes two glimmering points in the half-light, cat-like. Tom shivered, pulled apart under that gaze. "This is the realm of dreams. You may have anything you wish, here." Voldemort's harsh voice was almost kind.

"I want my true face—"

"Of course." Voldemort retraced his trail, his tongue cool, soothing the smarting pain of the bites he left along the way. And yet it went deeper, peeling away the lie. When Tom looked down at himself, he saw pale, waxy skin. Yes, he thought. Yes!

In the morning, Tom could recall only a faint impression of pleasure, so deep and shameful (no, he had no shame he had no shame). His head ached. Why couldn't he remember anything more than red, red eyes?

 _What troubles you, child?_ Tom could not reply. In waking, he could not put words to this sensation with roots he could not recall.

*

A ghost appeared in the girls' loo on the second floor within a week after the oaf, Hagrid, was expelled. There was whispering amongst the staff, from what Tom could tell, of interrogating her. He caught the tail end of an argument between Dumbledore and the doddering old Charms professor: "She may have seen nothing!" Dumbledore snapped. "It has taken her so long to appear that she may barely remember."

 _She remembered_ , his unwanted guest disagreed. _She did not see, but she remembered enough._

 _How do you know?_ A question he should, perhaps, stop asking.

 _I asked her._ Tom could taste satisfaction and something more bitter. _She was only too eager to tell me. Death did not improve her._ Tom caught an image of a ghost, diving into a toilet with an almighty splash. He wondered if he'd been meant to see.

The train ride back to London was miserable. In the compartment he shared with his choice Slytherins, Tom curled his fingers around the handle of his wand and endured banter that he had no interest in being part of.

"If not for the war, we'd be going to Poland for the Hallowed Retreat. Ah well, once Grindelwald's won, we'll never miss another." Tom gave Lestrange an imperious stare, and he quieted... for about five seconds, before launching into yet another "if not for the war" monologue.

"You could have joined us, too, my lord," Lestrange added hurriedly.

"I'm afraid I couldn't have," Tom snapped. "I have important things to do this summer." He felt his guest stir at this and gritted his teeth.

_And they are worthy plans._

_Of course they are_ , Tom thought. _I made them._

Was that... fondness he felt in response? He couldn't tell, but it was something more than polite contempt.

Tom left the station alone, his head bent to avoid notice, dragging his trunk behind him through streets filled with people equally hostile. He was not greeted with anything close to affection upon his return to the orphanage, just a narrow glare from Lucy from her perch on the stairway. "You came back," she said, surprised.

He raised an eyebrow, and she immediately subsided, drawing her elbows in and her shoulders up to her ears. Good. She had not forgotten.

_When will you go to find the Gaunts?_

_You already know_ , Tom replied sourly. _I can't hide anything from you._ And for the first time he could remember, he wished he could have confided in Dumbledore, for he was likely the only professor that could have helped him free himself of this unwanted guest. (Although how unwanted was he, truly?)

_That's quite true. Now hush, I have things to do._

_What?_ Tom protested weakly, but he couldn't move—

*

What was the harm in satisfying some curiosity? Voldemort had oft wondered, in his rare bouts of nostalgia, what it would have been like to meet the Riddles sooner, without the intention to kill them. Yet he had always had that intention, had he not? Once he knew where they could be found, spoken of so glibly by his odious uncle, he had wished for their deaths, for how dare anyone abandon his mother? And thus, he needed to go now, without Tom's knowledge, just to see...

A small amount of wandless magic would not be traceable, he recalled. So off he went, Disapparating early the next morning, Tom relegated to a tiny portion of his own mind, dreaming of Voldemort's own memories —of war and glory and of a victorious Harry Potter — and of skin licked away to reveal a second form. Let him make of those what he would.

Voldemort rapped brusquely upon the Riddles' polished front door with a gaudy griffin knocker. The door was opened almost immediately by a harried servant girl, who smoothed her skirts self-consciously as she took in the sight of him. "Who're you?" she demanded.

"You may call me Tom. I wish to speak with the younger Mr. Riddle."

"What's your business with him?"

Voldemort affected a childishly hopeful expression. "I think he knew my mum." A word he had never spoken in any seriousness, and which felt strange upon his tongue.

She left him waiting in the foyer as she dashed off. He gazed around at the mullioned windows, the sumptuously upholstered furnishings, the gleaming wood paneling. Oh, to have grown up here.

"He'll see you," the maid said. "His study's through here." She led him past portraits and paintings of idyllic scenes: grazing sheep, snow-capped mountains, a field of spring wildflowers.

Riddle's study itself was rather austere. Accounting ledgers littered his desk, as did several fountain pens in various states of hard use. Voldemort eyed it all with deepest distaste.

"So, you're her spawn, aren't you?" Riddle stood up from his chair. Voldemort studied him now, remembering the first time he had seen him. He hadn't looked at him then, only recalling a cool rage that would be satisfied solely by his death. But why had that been? There would have been benefit to keep him alive and, perhaps, compliant enough so as to be made his heir. He had always been adept at subtle compulsions. Why hadn't he tried?

Riddle was taller than Tom by about an inch. His hair was the same shade of black, but it fell straight across his forehead without any wave to it. His eyes were gray rather than dark brown. Ah, Voldemort remembered, he had his mother's eyes, rather like the—like Harry Potter. The resemblance between Riddle and himself was strong nonetheless.

Riddle pounded a hand onto the desk. "What do you want, boy?"

Ah, the indignity. "I may be her child, but I am also yours." His words were not choked into silence, thus, he supposed, this conversation had always happened, but how? He went on. "I was raised in an orphanage, you know. We had only as much as the matron could get from the charity of occasional donors. Often we have gone hungry, especially now with the rationing."

"But surely you were evacuated out to the country—" Riddle started.

"I was away at school."

"School?" Riddle's gaze sharpened in interest. "What sort of school?"

"I have a scholarship," Voldemort replied, not bothering to elaborate.

"Ah, well, no son of mine should have a shoddy education. But the rest." His eyes trailed over Tom's ragged, second-hand shirt, worn trousers, scuffed shoes. "You could certainly do better than those."

"What are you offering?"

"I don't want to see you," Riddle admitted. "But if I give you a stipend..."

He had not received anything of the sort before, therefore it was not meant to be. If he could not change his own past, then he must assure it.

"What was she like? My mother."

Riddle shook his head, not in refusal but disbelief. "You would ask me that? Do you know what she did to me?"

"If I knew, I would not ask," Voldemort snapped. "Please. All I was ever told was that she was taken in on a cold New Year's Eve, gave birth to me, and died." Out of weakness, he thought, savage. What witch would allow herself to die?

"She bewitched me with an evil concoction," Riddle spat. "I would never have married her on my own."

"Show me," Voldemort murmured, putting out a hand to grasp Riddle’s chin too quickly for him to resist. He gazed into Riddle's eyes, wended his way easily into his weak, unprotected mind, and drew the memories forward.

His mother was nearly identical to his uncle. Riddle saw her first as a forgettable waif, her dark, opposite-pointing eyes alight with entreaty. He had ignored her. She returned within days, kindly offering him a drink on a hot summer's afternoon. He had taken it; he had remembered only her.

 _Remember_ , Voldemort purred, and Riddle heard it. _She was dead within the year. By abandoning her, you ensured that she would die._

 _No, I fled. I did not abandon her_ , Riddle thought, but Voldemort caught a flicker of doubt and remembered fear, and he pounced. The specific memories mattered little now, only these emotions that Voldemort drew forth and twisted to his own ends. Let Riddle stew in that fear and that almost-guilt.

"I would have taken you in," Riddle croaked when Voldemort withdrew, hands trembling and eyes bloodshot. "But you're worse than she was."

"That's right."

"Get out," Riddle rasped. "Never come back."

"Of course." When Voldemort left, he took Riddle's memories of their meeting with him. He left the fear behind.

*

Tom was dreaming again. He was in that half-formed space of grays and darks. "I'm missing a day," he muttered. He hadn't realized until just now.

Voldemort appeared silently beside him. He curled a hand about Tom's throat, tilted his head back. His expression was flat. Tom, against the dread of his pounding heart, leaned into the touch.

"That's it," Voldemort murmured. "What would you have of me tonight, child?"

What an odd question, Tom thought. He tried to answer, but the words would not come. But he wanted—

"Your true face, once more?"

Tom nodded, throat tight. And they collided again with teeth and tongue, and Tom's lie was peeled away.

*

Tom found his uncle asleep in a hovel, broken bottles littering the filthy floor around him.  
This is it? he thought. This is what my mother came from?

_No wonder she ran off with a Muggle, hmm?_

Tom ignored that, peeved.

"You look like the Muggle what lives in the big house," his uncle noted, bleary-eyed.

"Do I?" Tom's hands were steady when he smashed a chair into the back of his uncle's head and stole his wand and the heavy ring off his hand.

The manor on the hill struck something familiar in Tom, but he'd never seen it before in his life. He'd imagined such places in his fantasies of being spirited away by his father, but—

He slipped in through a small side entrance. Somehow, he was certain they would turn him away if he went to the front. No one was about when he entered. He could hear low voices having what he could only guess to be soggy, after-dinner conversation.

 _Go there._ Voldemort’s bit of unsolicited advice caused Tom to start.

_How do you know?_

Voldemort sighed. _I was you, boy. Now go._

Tom stared at the closed set of double doors before him from which the voices emanated. One hand clutched at his uncle's wand. The other hovered over the latch. Why did he hesitate? There was nothing to fear from Muggles. (Wrong. There was only one of him.) No, he was being foolish. He summoned a bit of magic and swept the doors open without touching them, for dramatic effect.

There was a clattering as a glass was dropped, spilling its ruddy contents across the Persian rug. Tom found himself the subject of a horrified glare from gray eyes in an all-too-familiar face. "You," the man—his father—snarled. "Get out."

The other two people in the room looked from Tom to his father and back. "Tom," the old woman said. "Who is this? How do you know him?"

"This is that bitch's spawn."

"Have you met him before?" The elderly man at the head of the table, the lord of the manor, asked with a great deal of incredulity.

"No," Riddle muttered. "I don't think—"

"Then cease this nonsense!"

"But he is like her," Riddle snapped. "I'm sure of it." His fear was palpable; his eyes skittered from Tom's face to where his hand clutched the wand up his sleeve and back. "What are you going to do, boy?"

Tom's hands were clammy. He felt an itching in his mind; he'd been here before... no, no he hadn't. What was he supposed to do?

But perhaps it was destiny that answered. He could see only one end to this exchange. It was best. He felt it, deep in his bones. He brought out his wand.

Riddle jumped to his feet. "Bastard! You are no son of mine. Put that away!"

" _Avada Kedavra_ ," Tom said. The spell flew, and it was easy as breathing.

"What have you done?" The old woman screeched. "Tommy? Tommy!" She rushed from her chair, kneeling at her son's side. Tom cast the spell a second time. Then a third.

 _Good_ , Voldemort said. This was the first word he had spoken in several minutes, which felt like days. _Very good._

 _Is it?_ Tom huffed. "Is it?"

Voldemort sighed, or something that resembled sighing anyway. _Good enough. I'm sorry—_

_For what?_

No reply.

 _You need to leave, now._ Voldemort was insistent, the force of his thought a hammer inside Tom's skull.

Where should I go? Why were his thoughts so sluggish? But Tom was going, darting out the way he had come, the vestiges of his magic wrapped about him, not quite a Disillusionment Charm, but an effective rudimentary concealment.

_They mustn't catch you._

But someone saw. A man leaning on a cane seemed to look right at Tom as be ran past. "Hey, kid!" he called out. "Where are you going?" Tom bit his tongue and kept running.

*

Voldemort was losing his grip on everything. He could not possess Tom any longer. When he tried, a terrible weakness came over him. Tom noticed little.

The morning after the Riddles' death, Voldemort found he could not speak. Tom could sense his presence still, but it mattered not a whit.

 _What happened to me?_ Tom asked, plaintive.

Voldemort tried to reply—with a less-than-forthcoming answer—but could not.

 _Why won’t you speak?_ Tom seemed almost offended.

At this point, Voldemort could not muster the strength to try. He was fading. He was fading he would cease to be. Where would he end up after this?

The final moments did not so much as creep upon as him as assaulted him directly. Voldemort could see both Tom's mindscape and its glimpse of the outside world, and something darker. No, he thought. No.

And he felt, with the last of his strength, that he had one last thing to do. He had not remembered ever sharing his mind with another—besides Harry Potter—and thus he needed to... take all traces of himself before he vanished.

Such simplicity. Memory charms had always been a talent of his. But there was no time for nuance. All memories pertaining to himself he stripped away, and then dared not think what the effect would be on Tom's state of mind.

And then he was going... No, wait. He couldn't, he would live. He was Lord Voldemort! Death would not claim him!

He woke in a train station and immediately began to scramble to his feet, but he could not stand.

"Well, well. You can't outrun it forever."

Voldemort stared at the man standing across from him, or rather gazing down at him. "You," he choked.

“Me,” Harry Potter replied.

*

Tom's head hurt.

Something felt off, and when he tried to understand just what, the pain increased tenfold. He flopped back onto his threadbare pillow. He had only one thing planned for the day. Best to get it over with sooner rather than later.

(But something had gone wrong with the last one, hadn't it? No, no...)

Tom chanted the necessary Latin phrases, turned his magic in upon himself, tore out the dripping fraction of his heart,healed the remains with a haphazard spell. His uncle’s ring gleamed dully as his soul took its place.

Immortality was assured, and death would never touch him. _He_ was Lord Voldemort.


End file.
